RAILWAY TIME-TABLE GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2438, 8 June 1922, Page 4

RAILWAY TIME-TABLE

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

News reached New York a few weeks ago of the death at Havana of “Doc” Owens, an old time gambler, who was considered one of the most expert card manipulators of his time; He - fell downstairs at his hotel and died almost immediately. Well-known card players declare that Owens was without equal. He operated mainly on the big Transatlantic liners until the steamship companies refused him a passage. His most famous coup is alleged to have been when playing against Mr William Thaw, from whom he is reputed to have won 200,000 dollais (then £40,000) in 1906. Deaf and almost blind, Reginald Williams, 40, a Halifax painter, pleaded guilty at the Leeds Assizes to charges of bigamy and of fraud and false pretences involving upwards of £2,750. Sentence was postponed. It was stated that the bigamy took place at Monkwearmouth in September 1921, and all other offences at Halifax on various dates between the end of 1918 and the beginning of last year. These latter charges comprise:—Forging Exchequer, Treasury, and War Bonds, with intent to defraud; obtaining by false pretences £950 from Norman Dransfield, £4OO from the Commercial Permanent Money Society, £7OO from the Union Bank of Manchester, and £275 from the Halifax Equitable Bank. It wa • stated by prosecuting counsel tlmi the forgery had been done by adding noughts to the amounts on tlm bonds.

A police search of a suite of rooms at the Piccadilly Hotel, occupied by a retired American banker, Maurice C. Sternbach, was described at Marlborough Street Police Court. There was a charge against Sternbach of converting to his own use a brooch, valued at £6O, belonging to Mrs Kathleen E. Smith, of Brackenbury Farm, near Uxbridge. A police officer said that when Sternbach’s rooms were searched four pawnbroker’s tickets were found and some pawnbroker’s contract notes showing that about £l,lOO had been lent on articles of jewellery. It was alleged that Mrs Smith gave Sternbach the brooch to dispose of for her. He said he had sold it for £65, but did not give her the money or return the brooch. Later in the day the magistrate was informed that the money had been paid and Sternbach was discharged. Charged with attempting to commit suicide Geoffrey Alfred Guppy, 23, a bookkeeper at the Royal Aircraft establishment at Farnborough, Hampshire, was remanded at Aldershot for medical examination. Mr Freakes, stationmaster at Little Farnborough, gave evidence that he heard groans just as he was going to bed at midnight on Wednesday, and found Guppy lying face downwards on the railway track in front of an approaching railway train. Although struggling violently, the man was dragged into saftey as the Reading to London train dashed past. The police stated that Guppy when he was arrested tried to throw himself on to the railway track again, exclaiming as he did-so: “I want to die. I null tell no one my troubles.” A number of love-let-ters were found on Guppy, but they were not read in Court.

AVhile Mine, Galli-Curci, the opera singer, was lunching at a cafe in San Juan, California, a short time ago, she left her maid in the cafe rest room with a hag containing jewels. While the maid was reading two girls came into the rest room, overpowered her, and deeafnped with the bag. The jewels are valued at £9,000. They have not yet been recovered. .

Wolves having proved very destructive in the neighbourhood of McDonald, Kansas, U.S.A., an extensive hunt was organised with the aid of two aeroplanes from the aerodrome at Beaver City (Nebraska) about 75 miles away. The hunters on the ground were signalled to constantly by the pilots of the aeroplanes as they “spotted” movements of the wolves. So successful was the co-operation of these “aerial hunters” that it is suggested that aeroplanes should be used on an organised scale in exterminating destructive animals.